This website uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some of these cookies are essential to make our site work and others help us to improve by giving us some insight into how the site is being used. For further information, see our Privacy Policy. Continuing to use this website is acceptance of these cookies.

The Syrian regime is laying siege to whole cities, and is willing to annihilate them to crush the peaceful democracy movement. Security forces have cut off all food, water and medicine to these towns, shot hundreds of citizens, and detained and tortured thousands -- in many cases ripping out their fingernails before releasing them, as a warning to other protesters.

Despite this unimaginable terror, the Syrian people refuse to be silenced, and are committed to a non-violent path out of this nightmare. But while they have no shortage of bravery, they are short of funds. They are asking for financial and other support -- for needs ranging from urgent medical help to ads and public messages urging soldiers to refuse to shoot protestors.

Our best chance to protect tens of thousands of Syrian families at risk is to support their struggle.

Dreadful. The fact that so little real information about what is happening can get out of the country is very worrying. My husband visited Syria a couple of years ago and he said it was by far the most interesting place he had ever been. He also said the people were the friendliest he had ever met.

How is this unrest going to end? How do western governments decide which regimes they will help to topple? Who polices the world?

I have no answers :-(

"It's hard to put a leash on a dog once you've put a crown on his head"-Tyrion Lannister.

I am biased because my sister lives in Syria and this morning is catching a flight back there after spending 2 weeks in Devon to visit our mother. She is married with 2 boys (now men) and has lived and worked there for half her life. She is as good as Syrian. She is cool and calm and says things will get worse before they get better, but she does not seem scared. She says the best way to find out what is happening is through Al Jezeera which I think is available on Sky and on Channel 89 on Freeview - but I have not been able to access it yet - after 7pm!

Seems that the owner of the Syrian comms company, who came in for a lot of name calling and stone throwing from the protesters it seems, has decided to give all the profits to charity and social development.

Commentators seem to think this is due to pressure from the government, as a sop to the people, try to please them a little, rather than a crack in the ruling cadre.

"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."Me, 2015

That is a heart wrenching description of the situation in Syria - worse in some ways than some of the locals' descriptions, not sure why.

How can any regime in this age expect to hide their actions, unless the effectively reduce their country to a totalitarian police state or a medieval state of technology - but Syria seems to be heading for a combination of the two.

However, the rest of the world is not going to forget easily, any country that might have been their allies or supporters before (though I would guess only for commercial reasons probably) will almost certainly distance themselves in future.

The biggest dangers, IMO, are the effects of sanctions etc. on the people and the possibility, that if/when the police actions stop, diplomacy demands that the criminal leaders end up being re-absorbed into the world's politics, unpunished. But it seems that the people are willing to risk this as they were in the early days of Libya. But what chance international military action of any sort in Syria short of a UN ordered one - and what chance of that?

"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."Me, 2015

I understand the reluctance to agree to sanctions of countries like Russia and China - they wouldn't want the world sticking the finger into their "internal affairs" would they? Might make them look like hypocrites if they agreed to sanctions then repressed their own - could have that could we?!

My mind just started looking for comparison between our actions - sometimes quite violent - in NI and the current situations, especially those involving sectarian or tribal elements (if "tribal" can be applied to certain facets of NI's problems). Could we be called hypocrites?

"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."Me, 2015

My mind just started looking for comparison between our actions - sometimes quite violent - in NI and the current situations, especially those involving sectarian or tribal elements (if "tribal" can be applied to certain facets of NI's problems). Could we be called hypocrites?

A judge who went scrumping for apples as a boy would not be a hypocrite if he later jailed a violent bank robber, except by the most ridiculous and 'over technical' definition of 'hypocrisy'. While no-one can defend something like Bloody Sunday, such events were isolated and exceptional. In Syria there has a Bloody Sunday or worse every day for six months as a matter of a routine policy. The parallel is there, but so are significant divergences.

It is a debating trick to justify your own great wrong by pointing to a lesser wrong by your opponent, as if a small wrong (and every individual and state has many of those in its past) somehow justifies your own much, much greater wrong, or disqualifies them from criticising you. Imagine a violent bank robber in the dock saying the judge was a hypocrite because he knows the judge stole apples from an orchard when he was a lad. Technically, the robber would be right, but let's not our lose our sense of perspective and remember that mountains are not molehills, whatever abstract similarity the share!

Even if 'our' actions in NI were a hundred times worse than they were, that would be no reason not to do the right thing now. If something is the right thing to do, it is the right thing to do even if it could be called hypocritical, even if it is hypocritical.

The policies and actions of governments are seldom pure. States are probably incapable of 'pure altruism' by their nature, but I think NATO (primarily Britain and France) did the right thing in Libya, and I would like to see them do the same in Syria, but there is no chance of that unless the revolution will certainly succeed without 'NATO boots on he ground', and that is not clear at this time. Hypocritical or not (I don't think it is) direct action in support of the Syrian people against their government is the right thing to do.

With each passing day, Syria's crackdown on democracy protesters reaches new levels of horror -- bombing crowded neighborhoods filled with innocent civilians, cutting off electricity and phones so families can’t call for help, and blocking medical aid to the wounded. But finally a flicker of hope is emerging that could stop the terror.After the UN Security Council failed last week, Syria's neighbours in the the Arab League are taking the lead. They have called other key powers to an emergency meeting in 4 days in Tunisia, and Avaaz will be sitting at the table with the Syrian democracy movement to deliver a clear mandate for strong action.Right now, the level of public outrage could make the difference between forceful action and feckless diplomacy. Let's deliver a 1 million-strong call to action, and press negotiators to move now to stop the bloodbath. Click below to sign the petition -- it will be delivered directly to the delegates in the meeting:

Some time back my sister said it was going to get worse before it can get better. Her and her 'boys' were back for my mum's hundredth in Devon in April, but travel is not too easy to say the least. She got through to me by phone this morning - a bit unusual and I got the following link to the useful website that might encourage donations - her son is working on housing and feeding people in schools. Aleppo is definitely suffering now. Cheers -

It is getting worse in Syria and our UK news broadcasts are only telling us half of it. If that.

That's the news for you, today's happenings push last week's, no matter how bad they are, into increasing lower priority. I have not watched BBC News 24 to see whether they repeat the same things every hour or reprise older, but still current, happenings?

A friend watches a Russian world-wide news TV prog (on Freeview I think) and says that he is always surprised as to how wide the coverage is and how objective and unbiased it seems.

"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."Me, 2015